Journalist mom tweets “3-year-old for sale. $12 or best offer.” Following an anonymous tip, Lafayette County, Miss. initiates human trafficking investigation. And thus began what Alex McDaniel describes as the “most hellish week of my life.” [Magnolia State Live via Lenore Skenazy]

Bans on the singing of sectarian songs, as in the Scotland case mentioned here recently, are perhaps less surprisingly also a part of law in Northern Ireland [Belfast Telegraph, BBC] UK government “now arresting and even jailing people simply for speaking their minds” [Brendan O’Neill]

Group libel laws, though approved in the 1952 case Beauharnais v. Illinois, are now widely regarded as no longer good law, but a Montana prosecutor doesn’t seem aware of that [Volokh] No, let’s not redefine “incitement” so as to allow the banning of more speech [Volokh]

Judge chides Montgomery County, Md. police for “unlawful invasion” of family’s home [my new Free State Notes post]

As more offenses get redefined as “trafficking,” state extends its powers of surveillance and punishment [Alison Somin on pioneering Gail Heriot dissent in U.S. Commission for Civil Rights report; Elizabeth Nolan Brown/Reason on legislative proposals from Sens. Portman and Feinstein] Proposal in Washington legislature would empower police to seize/forfeit cars of those arrested for soliciting prostitutes, whether or not ever convicted [Seattle Times]

Progressives and the prison state: “most of the intellectual and legal scaffolding of the contemporary American carceral system was erected by Democrats.” [Thaddeus Russell reviewing new Naomi Murakawa book The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America]

When a near-unanimous Congress came together in 2008 to pass something with the moralistic, self-congratulatory name of the “William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection” Act, we should have braced ourselves for major, unintended, un-humanitarian consequences. And here they are. [Alex Nowrasteh, The Hill]

More: Now that the Wilberforce Act’s moral posturing has led to more actual trafficking, activist groups (see their open letter) are pressuring the White House not to fix the law [Charles Lane, Washington Post] “Congress likes to put fancy titles on its legislative handiwork, but they should probably just call everything the Law of Unintended Consequences, especially immigration bills.”

Civil libertarians won victories last term in restraining open-ended use of police surveillance, search and seizure: access to emails and social media postings older than six months will now require warrant, as will location tracking; new restrictions also placed on use of automatic license plate reading system data [ACLU 2014 policy report]

Bill that would have banned weapons on private school grounds, whether or not the school itself had objection, failed to make it out of committee [SB 353, earlier here, here]